…A new teen book discussion group for a small group of homeschooled teens in Kodiak. This is going to be fun!
† I am going…
…to have to figure out how many writing blogs per day I can read. As Stephen King says in On Writing, when you’re reading and talking about writing, you’re not writing! (paraphrased). And how many friend blogs. Need to leave some time for some news and current events blogs, too.

† I am reading…

…I’m still on Stephen King’s On Writing. I next want to read Peter Bregman’s: 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done. But I have to find it first.

† I am hoping…

…to re-learn Spanish with Mango online, which is now free to all Alaskans.

† Around the house…
…I don’t see anything around the house. I’m at the computer. If I can’t see the laundry, it’s not there, right?

† One of my favorite things…
…A good book and no good reason not to curl up and read.

† A few plans for the rest of the week:
…In On Writing, Stephen King says he reads about 60 books a week. And he’s a slow reader. That’s one a week. I wonder how many hours he spends reading? Think I’ll do some reading AND writing this week.

† Here is picture thought I am sharing…

Yep. It’s my knee. This is a picture of the terrible, horrible, awful CORAL REEF INJURY that I sustained while scuba diving in Hawaii during our twenty-fifth anniversary celebration in 2011. I knew you’d feel sorry for me, because, for some reason, Rich and Leah don’t.

Actually, this picture of my silly little cut is motivational to me, as one year earlier and 30 pounds heavier, I never would’ve felt comfortable scuba diving. I had enough drive and energy not only to scuba dive, but to have a blast doing so! A diagnosis of diabetes is good for something!

I had a dream a few nights ago. And, NO, before you ask, it has nothing to do with guilt feelings. You see, in my dream, I was in prison (thus the disclaimer about guilt)…I’m not sure why. It was one of those vague dream-reality things that simply was true. I have the vague feeling I hadn’t done the crime, but also had no way to prove it.

This was a unique prison. There were counsellors to help you through your feelings about being in prison. Very touchy-feely. But the clincher came when I forgot I was in prison, and left and went to McDonald’s for something to eat. I finished my meal and was on the way out of McDonald’s when I remembered with a pang, and ran back to the prison before they could notice I was gone. I made it, and all was fine, but I also woke up, so that was the end of that!

I’ve come to realize over the last few days that I was really thinking about diabetes as a prison, complete with diabetes educators and doctors to help me feel better about being in my prison and mad dashes off to McDonald’s or ice-cream land.

Can I eat at McDonald’s with diabetes? Sure. Like the prison in my dream, there was nothing me stopping me from going out the front door to McDonald’s. Eat ice cream? Sure. Not test my blood sugar? Sure. No guard at the front doors to this prison.

But, just as in my dream, there’s also nothing mitigating the truth that I have diabetes and must do the right things to take care of it. My kidneys and eyes and feet and heart all need me to take care of myself…to get back to the prison before I get "found out" by the appearance of some diabetes-related disease or another.

Diabetes is a prison of sorts, at least the sort of mild prison of my dream. A prison of healthy habits. There is no "diabetes diet," for instance…just healthy eating. I simply need to stick closer to it than most people. There is, however, a spot for an occasional mad dash off to McDonald’s…as long as I come right back to the diabetes "prison."

And I’ll have a junior hamburger instead of a Big Mac, and share my fries. I promise.

Is my DE for real? I’m going to test myself 15 minutes into any workout (thus stopping all the good things that are going on with my heart rate when I exercise), plus every 30 minutes thereafter?

Really? My goal has always been to run a marathon. That ought to be fun, stopping every 30 minutes.

My goal is to hike up Pyramid Mountain with my family. Say we do it with the Audubon Society…Am I really supposed to stop the group every 30 minutes while they all peer at me checking my blood sugar? How fun for them! Not to mention, me!

And what do I do with the used test strip and sharp in the middle of a marathon or up on a mountain? Run the marathon with a backpack?

SIGH!

OK. That’s out of the way. I’m only just beginning my diabetes education, and I need to be patient as I learn to teach my little receptor cells to hook up with the sugar-carrying insulin so my cells will quit thinking they’re starving and calling on the liver to make baby glucose, which then makes the pancreas freak out and make more insulin…

And patient as I learn how to deal with all the practical things like I’m whining about here. Thanks, Gayle.

Tomorrow: A BLOG COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO DIABETES! I’M SICK OF THINKING ABOUT IT, WORRYING ABOUT IT, TALKING ABOUT IT…

That didn’t come across exactly as I meant it, because it made it sound like I can do it myself, which is not exactly true. There’s my family, friends, doctor, dietician…all those people. And God. As Philippians 4:13 says, whatever I do, I do only through the power of Christ. I know it’s been all Him the last two weeks when I haven’t picked up an Oreo, or opened a can of diet Coke, because in myself, my bad habits wanted to take over in the worst way.

Ask my husband, who listened to my whining about wanting them!

What I did mean when I said I could turn to myself for the answers, is that I have no intention of not fighting this thing. It will be a lifelong fight, even if diet and exercise do end up getting me off these new medicines. But since it was my bad habits that got me into this "mess," it will be my good habits that get me out of it!

And maybe fight isn’t the right word. Conlict, Struggle, Constant Awareness…I don’t know. Maybe fight is the word, because it’s a battle I intend to win.

But not without Christ, family, and friends!

Blessings,
Voni

Awww, phooey! I just realized I can’t quite say it’s been two weeks without diet Coke yet.. But it will be as of Tuesday. Can’t wait!

Which was good in one way. I also turn on myself to look for answers to my diagnosis this week. Diet and exercise. (The good thing about that is that I was already getting into the exercise portion. Plus, I quit drinking diet Coke.)

I just wish I’d stuck to it the last time I used Sparkpeople.com to track my food and exercise and lost 10 pounds. But I probably at least had the beginnings of diabetes even then. Shoulda, woulda, coulda.

But the diabetes wasn’t caught by my falling into a diabetic coma, or passing out, or any one of a number of other things. It was caught because I wanted to go to the free screenings the Coast Guard has once a month here so I could get a baseline from which to babystep my way into health. I was already there.

I’m not exercising because of diabetes. I’m exercising because I wanted to. I majorly want to run a marathon, and I majorly want to climb Pyramid Mountain with my family this summer, as well as have more energy to give them.

(No wonder I’ve been feeling so low-energy the past few years. Probably I was in pre-diabetes then. Can’t wait to get it under control and feel better.)

Now, the diabetes and its wonderful eye, foot, kidney, and heart buddies are all just more fuel to my fire. I just need to babystep a little faster than I wanted to. I guess the dietician will get me started next Tuesday.